by Charles S. Kraszewski.
Every morning at 8:15
they pack themselves into the red sardine
can number 122
with their rafts
plastic soccer balls
beach umbrellas
folding boards with cheap sunglasses
and their own black bodies
to doze all the way to Fontane Bianche.
There, they’ll wander up and down the beach
with inflatable ducks around their waists
with four straw hats perched on their heads
under the careful eye of the fellow
who holds their passports hostage.
If they have passports in the first place.
And the white folk stretched out on the sand
take no more notice of them
than the birds that skim above them in the blue.
Such is the measure of their contempt, their fear.
Yes yes
this is no camp des saints.
The bathers fear nothing but
cancer
aging
pregnancy
and any sort of death
save euthanasia.